


Daydreamer

by ReinedeGrump



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Game Grumps, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 13:48:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10439037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReinedeGrump/pseuds/ReinedeGrump
Summary: A napper in a department store may drive Barry crazy (In the best way)Or AU where Barry is a department store worker and Ross likes to keep him on his toes





	1. Chapter 1

  Nothing is more torturous than being stuck at work when it's beautiful outside. Especially when your day has already been terrible to begin with. 

    Barry woke up and stretched his arms over his head. Surprisingly, he felt well rested. It was quiet in his room. Unusually quiet. Shouldn't there be some sort of noise?

    "Shit!" Barry leaped out of bed and grabbed his phone. Dead. "Oh god what time is it?"

    Barry ran into the kitchen and looked at his microwave clock. 10:34 am. He was almost an hour late to his job. Barry quickly ran into his room and threw on his uniform and shoes before somewhat brushing his teeth before running out the door. He didn't even have time to say good morning to his roommate.  

    To add insult to injury, traffic was especially bad that day. "Maybe I should call up there and let them know I'm running late." Barry's face fell flat in realization, "Oh."

    When he finally arrived to work after 25 more minutes of speeding, he clocked in. Sadly, he was met face to face with his manager. A stricter one of the two he usually has. 'Great', Barry thought.

    "Wanna start explaining why you were an hour late before or after your write up?" Mark crossed his arms. He was the same age as Barry but he had been working there longer. They had actually gone to high school together. Mark was always the hard working guy with unnatural red hair. He always found something wrong with the way his coworkers did things. Maybe his nit picky-ness got him his promotion in the first place.

    Barry sighed, "I'm sorry. I would have called but I guess my charger broke last night. My phone is dead which is also my alarm." Barry tried to hold up his phone and hit the home button to prove his point. 

    Mark sighed, "I guess this is the first time you've been late. Just, get a better charger next time. I need you to start straightening the shelves over there." 

    Barry was thankful Mark was understanding. He supposed there was no reason for Mark to get too upset. It was a weekday and the store was dead. Barry worked at one of those retail stores in the mall that sold appliances, clothes, home decor, and all other suburban home needs. 

    He was fixing the candles so all the labels faced out when he heard a gentle noise coming from the side of him. 

    "Is that.... snoring?" Barry stood up and walked over the display beds. He was shocked to find someone laying on top of it, sleeping peacefully. He looked around his age, light brown hair. Kinda cute. But Barry had a job to do, and he's not getting in any more trouble today just because some kid wants to doze off on display furniture. 

    Barry poked the man sleeping. "Excuse me?" 

    The man stirred a little bit but didn't budge. He didn't want his manager to stumble across this so he pushed a little harder. "Hey! Wake up please!"   
    This made the guy wake up. "Uh, what time is it?" 

    "Like almost noon. You're not allowed to sleep on the beds sir, sorry." Barry's tone was more annoyed than the generic 'I work in retail, I'm so cheery!' voice. 

    This made the man laugh. "My bad. Speaking of beds," The man hopped off, "looks like you woke up on the wrong side of one!"

    Barry could hide his annoyance at this point, "Whatever man. Just don't sleep on the beds. Please."

    The man was still laughing when as he walked off. Barry sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that morning and went back to his candles. He went through most of the shelves when another one of his coworkers spoke up on the walkie talkie.

    "Hey, it's time for me to go on break, can someone take over cashier?"

    "Yeah, I just finished up the candles, I'll be over there in a sec." Barry got up from his crouching position making all of his joints crack. He made his way over to the counter and switched with his coworker. 

    Barry wanted to rip his hair out when he saw the 'bed sampler' standing behind the guy he was about to ring up. 

    "Next please!" The older man walked up and threw his one item on the counter. Barry tried his best to keep his smile. "Find everything alright today?" When the customer ignored him, Barry stayed silent and rang up his item. 

    "Okay your total comes to $152.22." Barry tried smiling again. It fell when the man became outraged. 

    "150 dollars?! It said it was on sale!" 

    He hated when this happens, customers in retail were always the worst. Especially baby boomers. "I'm sorry sir, there is no sale for microwaves in that brand. Would you like me t-"

    "I got it from right over there! It said it was 75 dollars! This is highway robbery! I'm gonna call corporate!" The man started to get red in the face. 

       Barry was usually good at keeping his cool. It didn't stop him from getting anxiety when things didn't run smoothly however. "Sir please. It was misplaced. It shouldn't be there. This product's price is 150 dollars."

    "No!" The man was making a scene at this point. Barry thanked the gods it wasn't a busy day. "You will give it to me for 75 dollars because that's what the sign said! You will not rob me!" 

    "I can't d-"

    "Hey dude, do you wanna fuck off?" The voice snapped Barry and the old man out of the ongoing argument. The voice came from the guy that fell asleep earlier. He continued, "It's not the cashier's fault you're a fucking idiot. I have places to be. Go throw a tantrum somewhere else or buy the fucking microwave."

    This made the man livid. "What did you just say to me?"

    The other man laughed. "You're so embarrassing." The man laughed harder, "Oh my god! Are you shaking?! You should just go home before I start like, recording you or something. I'd love to post a video called 'Local Old Man Can't Read'. What do you think?" 

    The other man balled his fists. "How dare you! Your generation is just a bunch of incompetent idiots! I'm going home and calling corporate! Have fun losing your job!" He started to stomp out the door and the younger man called out.

    "Don't let the door hit you on the way out grandpa!"

    When Barry made eye contact with his defender, the other man gave a toothy smile. "You're not gonna get fired. Trust me. Corporate never cares about that. They're just gonna give him like a 5 dollar gift card or something. Anyway, can you ring me up for this bed set? It's my mom's birthday present."

    Barry just blinked at the other guy. "Uh yeah sure." He scanned the item and made eye contact. "Um, thank you for that by the way. No one has ever defended me like that before."

    He was met with another smile. "Of course, I hate it when a bunch of old geezers act like babies and take it out on people that don't deserve it." The man stuck out his hand. "I'm Ross by the way." 

    With the first genuine smile for that day, he took his hand. "Barry." 

    After talking about a few more things, Ross signed the receipt and left. Barry looked down to find Ross had left his number on it. Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Barry came home that night and told his roommate Danny about the whole old-man-sleeping-kid fiasco. 

  "You mean he just told off an old dude and gave you his number? What a riot! He's like a modern knight in shining armor!" Barry's curly headed roommate took a sip of his beer. 

    Barry lifted his own cup up. "Heh, yeah. It was really cool. I feel bad for yelling at him earlier for falling asleep. But you know how Mark is. If he saw that, I would have gotten written up for sure." 

    "So why aren't you texting Mr. Hero right now?" Dan gave him a sly smile making Barry blush.

    "I don't know. You think I should?"

    "Totally!" 

    Barry downed his drink. "Fine, but only because I'm most confident when I'm buzzed."

    Dan and Barry sat in the living room watching some cartoon when Barry picked up his phone. He had put it on a new charger when he had gotten home so he wouldn't have to go through that anxiety again. He also took out the now crumpled receipt and entered the number in his phone.

    'Hey, this is Barry. The cashier dude.' He figured that was casual enough and sent it.

    The phone pinged and displayed a message back. 'Hey! Did you have any more awful customers today? Lol'

    Dan peered over his friend's shoulder. "What did he say? That's him right?"

    "Yeah it's him. And I don't know dude, we just started talking. I'll let you know when it gets exciting."

    Dan shrugged and sat back down. Barry thought out what he should say next. Texting new people was always hard because that's when the conversations had to be the most exciting.

    'Nah, just grumpy managers haha. You wanna tell them off too?'

    Barry quickly typed out another response. 'But for real, thank you again for helping me out like that. I was having a bad day and you made it one hundred times better.'

    'Little ol' me? I try. You looked so innocent and nice. I wasn't gonna let some jerk talk to you like that. Cashiers are people too. Even if they do wake you up from a good nap.'

    Barry didn't know what to say. Luckily, his phone buzzed again.

    'Do you work tomorrow? My mom thought the bed set was hideous and I need to return it.'

    Barry laughed. 'To be fair, it was ugly. I open tomorrow. I'll help you find a less ugly one.'

    'See you then, Barry!' 

    Barry shook Dan's shoulder. "Oh my gosh Dan. He's coming back tomorrow!"

    "Whoa there Bar, you're gonna give me whiplash!"

    "Sorry, but ahhh! I'm so nervous!" Barry wasn't usually this excitable. But Ross was an exception seeing as he was so kind to him earlier. 

    "You will be okay! You got this dude!" The best Barry could do is believe his friend.

   --

    Ironically, Barry woke up before his alarm. Not by much, but at least now he might have time to eat breakfast at home today. Which is always better than the alternative of bad drive thru food. After a proper shower and an actual brush through the hair and teeth, Barry was ready to take on the world. Well, his job at the very least.

    The drive to work was a lot more relaxing, now that he was ahead of schedule. He rolled the window and stuck his hand out. The air wasn't chilling, nor was it humid. The temperature was something in between. He wished most days were like this. Usually California's weather was at it's nicest when it was the beginning of Spring. He anticipated this same weather every year. And somehow, the 90's radio Barry put on made it all that much more familiar. He tried to avoid the feeling of nostalgia, but there was no harm in indulging himself today.

    He clocked in and was greeted by his other manager, Jack. Jack was the cheerier one which always helped Barry's day go by faster. While he wasn't any less strict, the man was a lot more optimistic. They talked one day about how Jack loved this job because it wasn't like anything he had experienced in Ireland. He officially moved when he was around 19 to go to college.

    "Good morning Bar! Do you mind if we talked for a minute?" The green haired manager smiled at the other. His smile was more pushy than genuine.

    "Yeah sure, what's up?" 

    "We got a call yesterday by a customer who said you refused to sell him something. Is that true?" 

    Barry internally sighed. Of coursed he called up there. "Oh, he grabbed a microwave off the shelf over there and started yelling when I told him the retail price. I couldn't discount over 75 dollars for him and after apologizing, he threw a fit." 

    Jack pondered what he said. "Oh, that's true. Good job on that. So he was just in a bad mood?"

    Barry gave him a side smile. "Uh yeah, kinda."

    "Oh! Then fuck him!" They both cracked up. Barry was thankful for Jack. "Don't worry, I won't tell Mark about it. If he comes in again, get me okay? Anyway, can up start straightening those shelves over there please?" 

    Barry assumed his opening duties and helped a few customers find things here and there. It wasn't until around 2 o' clock when he felt two hands fall on his shoulders.

    "Boo!" Barry almost jumped out of his skin when the mystery man scared him. When he turned around, he was face to face with Ross and his signature grin.   
    "You scared the crap outta me man!" 

    "Sorry," Ross began, still grinning. "I don't believe in traditional greetings. Anyway, I already returned the bed set. Wanna help me find another one?" 

    Barry grinned back, "Of course man. But if you scare me again, you're on your own mister!" 

    "Fair enough."

    They spent a good while actually looking at bed sets instead of conversing before they settled on a somewhat decent one. "You know at this point, I don't care anymore. This one looks good enough to me. All this shopping makes me want to take a nap." Ross let out a yawn.

    "Is that what happened yesterday?" Barry cocked an eyebrow at him. He found it funny regardless. 

    "Actually Barry, that's exactly what happened. I don't know how people like shopping so much. It's so boring." Ross made sure to drag out the 'so' to prove his point. 

    "I actually don't mind shopping. It gives me time to clear my find and focus on something else when I'm stressed."     

    "Guess you're just weird then." Barry shrugged. Ross continued, "Anyway, I know we just met but the fair is in town and I don't wanna go alone. What time do you get off? Can I bribe you with paying for all the games? I just don't want to be that loser who rides the Ferris wheel by them self." 

    Barry considered this. Did he really want to go to the fair with a complete stranger? He supposed they were gonna be in public. Plus he was thinking about wanting more friends. "Yeah sure. What the hell? I get off in an hour."

    Ross beamed. "Great! I'll text you where it's at and I'll meet you there whenever you're ready to go."

    "Deal!" Barry returned the smile.

    When he saw Ross leave, he pulled out his phone and texted Dan. Out of sight of his manager of course. 'Hey man, guess who scored a date with the mystery dude? Okay well it's not really a date but we're going to the fair after work.'

    He put his phone in his pocket before he really did get busted by Jack. For the next hour, Barry was glowing. His excitement was very apparent, even after Ross left.   
    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm trying to plot build! First encounters always take a bit to write out to make it seem more natural.   
> anyway, next chap will be a fun one!

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is Reinedegrump.tumblr.com if you want to send in requests! Thank you for reading!


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